Ron "tax to the max" Sims is seeking additional funding for staff and grant programs for affordable housing, since housing in Seattle is becoming progressively LESS affordable as a result of the mis-named "SmartGrowth" initiatives. It is basic market economics that, if you artificially constrain supply, prices go up. Having instituted a policy that FORCES RENTS AND HOME PRICES HIGHER, he now wants additional tax dollars to hire MORE government workers and provide MORE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE to attempt to offset the inevitable consequences of HIS POLICIES. From the Seattle Times:

The report, based on surveys, real-estate sales, federal data and county planners' estimates, comes as Sims is seeking money in next year's budget for a housing planner to work on federal housing programs and assist developers.

The report said South King County is the least expensive place in the county to buy or rent a home. Rural cities such as Enumclaw, Black Diamond, Covington and Snoqualmie are also affordable compared to Seattle, the Eastside and the northern part of the county.

It also said rentals are too expensive for 52,000 of the 280,000 renting households. Of the 52,000, more than 35,000 received public rental assistance. "Nevertheless, there remains at least 20,000 households who cannot afford market-rate rentals, and who do not receive any assistance," the report said.

http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/hous_19991110.html

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-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), November 10, 1999

Answers

You can lead a liberal to logic but you cant make them think. Vote incompetent people OUT. In this state it means VOTE THE DEMOCRATS OUT Its simple, VOTE GOP ACROSS THE BOARD. The GOP endorsed 695 The GOP believes in reducing taxes and government The GOP believes government is not the solution, rather government is the problem What can government do efficiently ? (besides tax the hell out of everything) NOTHING. So it makes sense to minimize the amount of tasks they do have.

Is this liberal bashing? damn right it is, but its not equal time, the liberal media has been conditioning the masses to vote for democrats for 55 years by bashing the GOP and glorifying the DEM.

God when will the cycle of symbolism without substance break, and be replaced with character, integrity and accountability.

How can we fix the media? 82% of people that work for the Seattle Times/PI admit they vote DEM This is slightly higher than the national average of 68% of major city papers.

Does any body have some ideas on how we can get balanced news and editorials?

-- ERAmerican (william.reagor@guidant.com), November 10, 1999.

ERAmerican

As a former GOP (40 years), I think they do a good job of bashing themselves.

Ed - Dems/Reps their all the same. power corupts even in our state.

-- Ed (ed_bridges@yahoo.com), November 10, 1999.

"Does any body have some ideas on how we can get balanced news and editorials? " Not to worry, William, the internet is going to obsolete them. With ever increasing numbers of channels, ever increasing numbers of news sources, the effectiveness of the propaganda decreases. It brought down the wall, it'll bring down the liberal journalism establishment. YOU WATCH! It WILL happen. By 2010, albert the bore will wish he hadn't ever "invented the internet."

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), November 10, 1999.

Well, yes. But when the government realizes that the internet is going to become a medium for freedom and truth, uncontrolled by govenment, how long do you think government will let the internet exist without stepping in and controlling it? No doubt to save the children, etc.

-- Art Rathjen (liberty@coastaccess.com), November 10, 1999.

Greed and corruption abound. The 4th estate is not serving our best interests because they are no longer a separate entity as they were in years past, but are owned by those who have money, power and an agenda. The corruption, the selfserving starts at the top and they hold hostage those who want to keep their jobs on the lower rungs of the ladder while they buy what they want from the politicians. The only solution is for entegrity to prevail on a massive scale, but I'm afraid this is not the generation from whence it will come. The Democratic congressman from Illinois who was interviewed on 60 Minutes last night said it all when he admitted the "big boys" told him to shut up when he came to town.

-- sw (ware99@wa.freei.net), November 11, 1999.

the state GOP doesn't support 695. local branches may, but not the state. I just got off the phone with senator Gorton's rep, and was told "what local branches have done in no way reflects what the state party believes". I was also told that Senator Gorton does not agree with 695.

As far as smart growth goes, it is a good idea. Once again craig, you're speaking like an economist and not looking at the total picture. the cost of inefficient land consumption far outweighs the cost of increased property tax. look at the figures. look at all 11 smart growth states in the U.S. that number is growing because people realize the value of open space, clean air, ag land, recreation, and tourism to open space.

-- theman (theman@wuzzup.com), November 14, 1999.

theman--"As far as smart growth goes, it is a good idea. Once again craig, you're speaking like an economist and not looking at the total picture. the cost of inefficient land consumption far outweighs the cost of increased property tax. look at the figures. look at all 11 smart growth states in the U.S. that number is growing because people realize the value of open space, clean air, ag land, recreation, and tourism to open space."

Everybody understands all that. . .point is, you reap what you sow. If you attempt to preserve open space by making it more difficult to build housing, you really shouldn't whine when housing costs go up.

Sheesh, the point was simply that Sims wants more money to "fix" a problem with affordable housing (like money has much to do with the solution) that he *helped* create with his Smart Growth initiative.

-- Brad (knotwell@my-deja.com), November 15, 1999.

Reply to theman:

You were misinformed by the Gorton rep. The State GOP DID come out in support of 695. County delegates (two per county) voted overwhelmingly at the state convention in Spokane (in September, I think) to support 695. I recall some of the media criticism the GOP received at the time for fence sitting on the issue, which criticism was posted on this site by anti 695 people. By its vote of support, the GOP reaffirmed a few reasons why they are Republicans -- lower taxes and concommitant less government intrusion.

By the way, the Gorton rep. talked about "local branches." I'e never heard this term used. There are formal county organizations, i.e. Spokane County Republican Party, then the state party.

-- A.C. Johnson (ajohnson@thefuture.net), November 15, 1999.

"theman--"As far as smart growth goes, it is a good idea. Once again craig, you're speaking like an economist and not looking at the total picture. the cost of inefficient land consumption far outweighs the cost of increased property tax. " I don't agree AT ALL. Cities evolved for specific purposes, so did suburbs. What you may describe as "inefficient land consumption" (how do you "consume" land) I would describe as a free people making choices. If someone is doing something with THEIR property that you don't like, either buy the property from them if they are willing, or condemn it for public purposes if it meets criteria for condemnation (paying them market value). recommend you read: http://www.brookings.org/press/review/fa98/gordon2.pdf http://www.cascadepolicy.org/growth/gordon.htm

Basically, I think most of the New Urban movement people are trying to hold on to their vision of the big city as the nucleus of political and cultural power, when the megatrends are against it. The internet ALONE will substantially affect the need for cities. Telecommuting will substantially affect these needs. I know people right now who telecommute from Sequim to their jobs in Sacramento California. Increasingly, dispersal is a more effective pattern. If you are looking at decreasing impact of man on the environment dispersal (like when we were hunter gatherers) is much more environmentally friendly. At a population density of one family per five acres, air pollution, sewage, and other problems are far easier to deal with.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), November 15, 1999.

The difficulties with the wishful thinking of the New Urban movement are fairly well known. And that's what it is, wishful thinking. Many New-Urbanists point to Europe as a model. I'v lived in Europe. It is a disastrous model of high unemployment and wasted lives. Ant that's Western Europe. Eastern Europe is worse.

http://www.brookings.org/views/articles/nivola/1999pi.htm

Follow Europe? To conclude that greater fiscal burden sharing and a wide range of other public policies help sustain Europe's concentrated cities is not to say, of course, that all those policies have enhanced the welfare of Europeans-and hence, that the United States ought to emulate them. The central governments of Western Europe may assume more financial responsibilities instead of bucking them down to the local level, but these top-heavy regimes also levy much higher taxes. Fully funding all of Washington's many social mandates with national tax dollars would mean, as in much of Europe, a more centralized and bloated welfare state. Most households are not better off when farmers are heavily subsidized, or when anticompetitive practices protect microbusinesses at the expense of larger, more efficient firms. Nor would most consumers gain greater satisfaction from housing strategies that encourage renter occupancy but not homeownership, or from gas taxes and transportation policies that force people out of their cars and onto buses, trains, or bicycles. In fact, these sorts of public biases have exacted an economic toll in various Western European countries, and certainly in Japan, while the United States has prospered in part because its economy is less regulated, and its metropolitan areas have been allowed to decompress. So suffocating is the extreme concentration of people and functions in the Tokyo area that government planners now view decentralization as a top economic priority. Parts of the British economy, too, seem squeezed by development controls. A recent report by McKinsey and Company attributes lagging productivity in key sectors to Britain's land-use restrictions that hinder entry and expansion of the most productive firms. The densely settled cities of Europe teem with small shops. But the magnetic small-business presence reflects, at least in part, a heavily regulated labor market that stifles entrepreneurs who wish to expand and thus employ more workers. As the Economist noted in a review of the Italian economy, "Italy's plethora of small firms is as much an indictment of its economy as a triumph: many seem to lack either the will or the capital to keep growing." The lack of will is not surprising; moving from small to midsize or large means taking on employees who are nearly impossible to lay off when times turn bad, and it means saddling a company with costly mandated payroll benefits. Italy may have succeeded in conserving clusters of small businesses in its old cities and towns, but perhaps at the price of abetting double-digit unemployment in its economy as a whole. Striking a balance America's strewn-out cities are not without their own inefficiencies. The sprawling conurbations demand, for one thing, virtually complete reliance on automotive travel, thereby raising per capita consumption of motor fuel to four times the average of cities in Europe. Our seemingly unbounded suburbanization has also blighted central cities that possess irreplaceable architectural and historic assets. A form of metropolitan growth that displaces only bleak and obsolescent urban relics, increasingly discarded by almost everyone, may actually be welfare-enhancing. A growth process that also blights and abandons a nation's important civic and cultural centers, however, is rightfully grounds for concern. STILL, PROPOSALS TO RECONFIGURE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES NEED TO SHED SEVERAL MISCONCEPTIONS. AS RESEARCH BY HELEN LADD OF DUKE UNIVERSITY HAS SHOWN, THE COSTS OF DELIVERING SERVICES IN HIGH-DENSITY SETTLEMENTS FREQUENTLY INCREASE, NOT DECREASE. TRAFFIC CONGESTION AT CENTRAL NODES ALSO TENDS TO WORSEN WITH DENSITY, AND MORE PEOPLE MAY BE EXPOSED TO HAZARDOUS LEVELS OF SOOT AND SMOG. (THE INHABITANTS OF MANHATTAN DRIVE FEWER VEHICLE MILES PER CAPITA THAN PERSONS WHO INHABIT NEW YORK'S LOW-DENSITY SUBURBS. NEVERTHELESS, MANHATTAN'S AIR IS OFTEN LESS HEALTHY BECAUSE THE BOROUGH'S TRAFFIC IS UNREMITTINGLY THICK AND SELDOM FREE-FLOWING, AND MORE PEOPLE LIVE AMID THE FUMES.) GROWTH BOUNDARIES, SUCH AS THOSE CIRCUMSCRIBING PORTLAND, OREGON, RAISE REAL ESTATE VALUES, SO HOUSING INSIDE THE BOUNDARIES BECOMES LESS, NOT MORE, "AFFORDABLE." EVEN THE PRESERVATION OF FARMLAND, A HIGH PRIORITY OF MANAGED GROWTH PLANS, SHOULD BE PLACED IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE. THE UNITED STATES IS THE WORLD'S MOST PRODUCTIVE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCER, WITH AMPLE CAPACITY TO SPARE. PROPPING UP MARGINAL FARMS IN URBANIZING AREAS MAY NOT PUT THIS ACREAGE TO USES MOST VALUED BY SOCIETY. In sum, the diffuse pattern of urban growth in the United States is partly a consequence of particular geographic conditions, cultural characteristics, and raw market forces, but also an accidental outcome of certain government policies. Several of these formative influences differ fundamentally from those that have shaped European cities. Critics of the low-density American cityscape may admire the European model, but they would do well to recognize the full breadth of hard policy choices, and tough tradeoffs, that would have to be made before the constraints on sprawl in this country could even faintly begin to resemble Europe's.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), November 15, 1999.